Roast Chicken with Beans, Garlic and Apples

This is just a great Sunday dinner.  The best of the season, apples, is added to a classic chicken and garlic recipe. 

And instead of potatoes or rice, let’s do it with cannellini beans!  And I’m going to be kind: when you make this dish, don’t worry about soaking dried beans overnight, two 14 oz cans of beans will work great!  Cannellini beans turn so lovely and creamy, and really soak up the braising liquid, so you will love their presence as the carb in this dish.

Chicken with Forty Cloves of Garlic

Yes, we love our chicken and garlic meals.  There is something so unctuous about whole garlic cloves melting softly and turning into a sweet addition to the chicken juices and herbs of a roast or braised chicken. Of course, if we actually minced these cloves, the dish would have a drastically different flavour (oh dear!!) The classic French dish uses several heads of garlic to achieve this.  Since there are on average 10 cloves of garlic per head, the traditional recipe calls for 4 heads of garlic.  I am not asking you to use that many in this dish.  One head will be quite enough!  And yes, they will be so soft that you can eat them as is, smoosh them into the chicken or beans, or spread them on a some crusty bread.  For the classic recipe, you can’t beat James Beard’s version here. 

The Chicken

Yes, you could roast off the chicken whole, but I find that this often leaves some parts of the chicken done while others are still underdone.  So let’s take it apart.  You can ask the butcher to do this.  Or you can take some kitchen shears and cut down on either side of the back bone to release the breasts.  The, with it open, you will easily see where to cut out the legs.  You can stop at this point, as I did for the photos here.  When the breast and wing are attached it gets a fancy name: Chicken Suprême!  The legs are usually called Leg Quarters, but can also be referred to Chicken Maryland in Australia, not to be confused with the American dish Chicken Maryland! By the way, cooking chicken legs or dark meat to between 170-175F makes for an even texture, just saying.

However, feel free to separate the wing from the breast, and the thigh from the drumstick.  Just keep the bones in, they add flavour.  If the breasts are exceptionally large, feel free to cut these in half.  If for some reason the bone is removed during this process, the roasting time may be reduced for these cuts, so keep an eye on them.

And yes, after saying all of this, if you just want to go and purchase pre-cut legs, thighs or breasts, go for it!!

Keep the skin, for that coveted crispy crunchy texture and glorious golden colour.

Apples, in Two Forms

Apples finish this dish in the most spectacular way.  Not only are the chicken pieces, beans and garlic roasted in apple cider, but while they are cooking in the oven, you will pan fry apple slices in a skillet to serve as a side.  Crisped up in the butter, and sprinkled with salt and pepper, these make for a wonderful sweet surprise to the salty crusted chicken.

Method

This is a simple pan sear and oven roast dish.   Once the chicken pieces have been seared in butter and olive oil (I like a combo of them both for flavour and colour) they get nestled on top of the beans and then apple cider is poured to cover the beans. Rosemary, salt and pepper finish off the flavours that will meld together in the oven as they roast away.

After 40 minutes or so, depending on size of the chicken pieces, they are ready to serve.  The beans have turned creamy and are now flavoured with cider, rosemary, salt, pepper and chicken juices. You can scatter the apple slices around the chicken pieces and serve right from the casserole dish, or serve the apples on the side, along with a side salad or greens of some sort.

Final Thoughts

This is an easy to make recipe, that if you wanted it say on a Wednesday, go for it.  But it is special enough for Sunday roast, or for company.  The aroma of the garlic and apple cider makes quite a presence, that mouths will be watering before everyone is seated around the table.  Go ahead and use hard cider if you want!  Switch it up to pears and pear nectar if you want.  See, this is a pretty versatile dish.  In the Spring, replace the apples with lemons slices charred on an oiled grill pan, and the cider with half white wine and half chicken stock.

Here are some great sides for this aromatic chicken dinner: Apple and Root Vegetable Puree with Ginger and Red Peppercorns Cinnamon and Sumac Brussels Sprouts, All Things Green and Herb Salad, Roasted Spring Vegetables,  Braised Leeks, Rose Harissa Roast Carrots, Tamari and Pomegranate Molasses Glazed Baby Beets

Love Jen

5 from 1 vote

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Roast Chicken with Beans, Garlic and Apples

Crispy skinned chicken is roasted along with creamy cannellini beans and garlic cloves in apple cider till everything is an aromatic treasure! Pan seared apple slices are the perfect finish. Sunday dinner anyone!?

Course Main Course

Cuisine North American

Keyword apple cider, apples, cannellini beans, chicken, garlic

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 40 minutes

Servings 4

Ingredients

• 1 whole chicken cut into 4 pieces, bone in, or 8 pieces if so desired, see Note
• 4 Tbsp butter divided, plus more if needed
• olive oil
• sea salt
• coarse ground pepper
• 2 14 oz cans cannellini beans drained and rinsed, (398 ml each)
• Fresh rosemary
• 1 head of garlic divided into cloves, unpeeled
• 1 cup apple cider
• 2 to 3 firm apples like Honeycrisp or Gala

Instructions

Chicken

1. Preheat the oven to 375F.
2. Pat the chicken pieces dry with paper towel. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
3. Heat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add 1 tbsp butter and 1 tbsp olive oil. Nestle the chicken pieces into the pan (work in batches if needed) skin side down. Once the skin is golden brown, about 3 minutes, turn the pieces over and brown the other side 2 minutes. Adjust the heat if the skin is scorching. Remove from the heat to a plate.
4. Place the rinsed beans in a baking dish or large casserole and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Nestle the chicken pieces, skin side up over the beans in one layer. Drizzle any pan juices and juices that collected on the plate over everything.
5. With the side of a knife blade, smash the garlic cloves to open them up, but leave the skins on. Scatter these around the chicken pieces
6. Add 1 or 2 sprigs of rosemary, broken into smaller pieces around everything. Pour the cider around the beans. Dot the top of the chicken pieces with 1 tbsp of butter.

7. Place on the middle rack in the oven and roast until the meat is 165F, about 40 to 45 minutes or so depending on your oven and the size of the chicken pieces. Check the breasts earlier and remove to a platter if finished. Cover these with foil. See Notes

Pan Seared Apples

1. While the chicken and beans are roasting, prepare the apples
2. Slice the apples into 1/4-1/2 inch slices. Leave the peels on.

3. Heat the remaining 2 tbsp butter in a large skillet over medium high heat. Scatter the apple slices in the pan, as much in one layer as possible. Let them sit for one minute to take on colour. Start turning and brown on all sides. Once golden brown and seared in places (adjust heat if necessary) transfer to a serving bowl. Drizzle with any remaining butter in the pan, as well as a good sprinkling of salt and pepper.

Serve

1. Place the chicken pieces on a platter and surround with apple slices, the garlic and some fresh rosemary for garnish

2. Serve the beans and cider broth in a separate bowl. Garnish with rosemary if desired. The beans and broth can also be served around the chicken if you desire.

3. See blog post for more details and suggestions.

Recipe Notes

If you don't want to cut up the chicken or can't have a butcher do it, feel free to replace with bone-in skin-on chicken pieces, between 6-8 pieces, depending on the size.
Depending on the size of the chicken this will feed 4 to 6 people. Extra large breasts can be cut in half. Dark meat has a better texture if cooked up to between 170-175F, so feel free to remove the white meat beforehand, and let the dark meat roast longer.

Serve crusty bread on the side for those who want to smoosh their garlic on bread which can also soak up the cider braised beans.